Number of mixed-race couples on the rise in Canada: StatsCan

Shannon Proudfoot, Canwest News Service04.23.2010

Sonia Ellis-Seguin and Brian Seguin, a Toronto couple who met through mutual friends years ago, finally connected at Caribana in 2005 and ended up getting married and having a son together.Handout
/ CNS

More than 340,000 children in Canada are growing up in mixed-race families, a new report from Statistics Canada reveals, and the number of mixed unions is growing much more quickly than that of other partnerships.

Increasing numbers of mixed ethnocultural unions and international adoption mean five per cent of children in two-parent families in Canada now live in diverse households, said Anne Milan, senior analyst and co-author of the report, released Tuesday.

"There's close to 294,000 children that have mixed-union parents," she said. "And if you look at a mixed-family concept where at least one person in the family — not necessarily the parents — is a visible minority and at least one is not, or there's two different visible minorities, it's over 340,000 children that are in that kind of a mixed-family situation."

The 2006 census counted 289,400 mixed common-law and married couples involving one visible minority and another non-visible minority or two people from different visible minority groups.

The number of mixed unions swelled by 33 per cent between the 2001 and 2006 census counts, growing five times faster than the average for all couples. Milan said the swift growth in the amount of mixed couples is paralleled by a general rise in Canada's visible minority population, which grew 27 per cent in that five-year period.

Of Canada's mixed couples, about 86 per cent were made up of one visible minority person and a partner who is not part of a visible minority. While couples comprised of people from two different visible minority groups are less common and account for just 0.6 per cent of all couples in Canada, their ranks are growing even more quickly, increasing by 50 per cent between 2001 and 2006.

Statistics Canada uses the Employment Equity Act definition of visible minority, which is "persons, other than Aboriginal Peoples, who are non-Caucasian in race or non-white in colour." This includes Chinese, South Asians, blacks, Arabs, West Asians, Filipinos, Southeast Asians, Latin Americans, Japanese and Koreans.

"We saw that the longer someone had been in Canada, the higher the proportion that was in a mixed union," said Milan.

Among first-generation visible minorities, or those born outside of Canada, 12 per cent of those coupled off were in mixed unions, but second- and third-generation visible minorities in Canada are now more likely to marry outside their ethnocultural group than within it. Fifty-one per cent of second-generation visible minorities — those who were born in Canada but have at least one parent born outside the country — are in mixed unions, as are 69 per cent of third-generation visible minorities whose parents were born in Canada.

Sonia Ellis-Seguin's parents were both born in Jamaica and immigrated to Canada before she was born. When she met Brian Seguin through mutual friends several years ago, she said, she wasn't interested in an interracial relationship and was instead waiting for "the Denzel" to come along.

After several chance encounters over the years, the two finally clicked at Toronto's Caribana festival in 2005. They were married in 2008 and now have a 14-month-old son, Simon Peter, as well as shared custody of Seguin's two sons from a previous interracial marriage.

"I'm really glad I was able to see beyond what I originally thought was going to be my tall, dark and handsome. I got my tall, fair and handsome," Ellis-Seguin, 38, said laughing. The Toronto couple was featured on Crazy For Love, a series airing on Vision TV profiling mixed-union couples in Canada.

Her father insists Seguin is really Jamaican because of his appreciation of her family's music, culture and lifestyle, she said, and she reminds her husband that their children will face different societal expectations because their skin colour is darker than his.

"We as parents have to be aware of that and teach our children how society is going to view them and what they need to bring to society as a contributing member," she said. "It's different, unfortunately. Even though we say we've come far, society still has its problems."

Mixed unions are largely "an urban phenomenon," Statistics Canada reported, with 5.1 per cent of couples in Canada's major cities in mixed unions, compared to 1.4 per cent of those in rural areas and small towns. However, Milan said when the analysts calculated the number of mixed unions based on the proportion of visible minorities living in various Canadian cities, interesting exceptions emerged in smaller centres.

Cities such as Saguenay and Trois-Rivieres, Que., Quebec City, Moncton, Saint John, N.B., Thunder Bay and Barrie, Ont., all have small visible minority populations but 40 per cent or more of their coupled-off visible minority residents have partnered with people outside their group.

"Part of that is because if you are part of a very small group, the chances of you meeting someone outside that group are probably a little larger," Milan said.

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Findings of the Statistics Canada report:

- Japanese had the highest proportion of marrying or partnering outside their visible minority group, with 75 per cent of those coupled off choosing a non-Japanese partner. Next are Latin Americans at 47 per cent, blacks at 41 per cent and Filipinos at 33 per cent.

- Mixed unions were most common in the 25-to-34 age group (6.8 per cent), followed by people aged 15 to 24 (5.8 per cent). In the 55-plus crowd, only 1.9 per cent of couples are of different ethnocultural backgrounds.

- Educated people are more likely to be in mixed unions. Just 1.8 per cent of those with a high school education were in mixed unions, compared to 4.8 per cent with post-secondary education and 6.4 per cent with a university degree.

- Education is linked to income, and median family income was nearly $5,000 higher for couples in mixed unions ($74,670) than non-mixed couples ($69,830).

- Mixed couples are more likely to be common-law than married, with 4.9 per cent of common-law unions including mixed couples, compared to 3.6 per cent of those legally married.

- A higher proportion of same-sex couples were in mixed unions, with 9.8 per cent of same-sex couples being mixed, compared to 3.8 per cent of opposite-sex couples.

- Provincially, British Columbia has the largest proportion of mixed couples, at 5.9 per cent, while Ontario has 4.6 per cent and Alberta 4.2 per cent.

- Among Canadian cities, Vancouver has the largest share of mixed couples, at 8.5 per cent, followed by Toronto with 7.1 per cent and Calgary with 6.1 per cent.

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Number of mixed-race couples on the rise in Canada: StatsCan

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